Boss Wilder remains upbeat after Pools halt Town’s winning run

James Heneghan

Chris Wilder felt Saturday’s goalless draw with Hartlepool United was a fair reflection of the game as the Cobblers boss remained upbeat despite seeing his side’s 10-game winning run come to an end.

Northampton came into this clash as hot favourites with 20 places and 46 points separating the sides in League Two but there was little evidence of that on the pitch in a scrappy game short on goalmouth action.

James Collins came closest for the visitors when his miscued shot was comfortably gathered by Trevor Carson while Nathan Thomas headed over for the Pools as neither goalkeeper was seriously tested.

Wilder said afterwards: “It was a tough afternoon and I think a draw was a fair result.

“I’ve got to give the opposition a load of credit because they were difficult to play against. There’s always a reaction for a new manager and I’m sure Craig (Hignett) will get them going and they’ll pick up results if they played like they did against us.

“We could have nicked, they could have nicked it. It was a really a game of counter-attacking football. The pitch wasn’t great and our quality going forward wasn’t great.

“Whether that was us being a little bit off or the pitch not being great or whether it was the opposition, I think it was a bit of all three.

“We’re there to be shot at and if we can’t win, we make sure we don’t get beat and we managed to do that.

“We got into some great positions, especially early on, but we didn’t take them and they also got into some good position and a draw was fair and now we move on.”

Irrespective of this result, 10 successive wins is still a mightily impressive achievement and Wilder was full of praise for that feat after full-time.

He added: “To win 10 games of football at any level - whether it’s Sunday league or non-league or Premier League - is an unbelievable achievement and they deserve an enormous amount of credit.

“They went for the 11th win today and might be a bit disappointed but I look at points totals to get us out of the division and it’s another point.

“We’ve picked up four valuable points in two games and everybody knows if you pick up two points a game you’ll go up and most probably win the league.”